


stolen moments that we steal

by daisyrachel



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Iceberg Lounge, M/M, Mild Angst, Slow Burn, lots of partnership, ur favs are communicating, well sorta
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-19
Updated: 2017-06-19
Packaged: 2018-11-16 05:28:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11247243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daisyrachel/pseuds/daisyrachel
Summary: It’s an easy system. Every year, like clockwork. It’s not until the fourth year that everything gets horribly screwed up.In which Oswald unfreezes Ed every year, until he doesn't





	stolen moments that we steal

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from "secret love song" by little mix (until then i had been calling this "ice ice baby" in my head lol)

The first time Oswald unfreezes Edward, it’s a year after they were at the docks.

(Their second incident at the docks, of course. The time he won.)

(He won the first time too though, technically. Not dying? He won)

It’s been a year. He’s stayed on top. Barbara and Butch were comatose, Tabitha didn’t care, and she seemed to be on his side now. With their respective weak spots out of the way, they were good allies, and she seemed to take a liking to Ivy. Ivy was also glad for the partnership between Tabitha and the Penguin, because it meant she got to see Cat.

Cat. Oswald remembered her, from the early days. Selina Kyle, street trash girl, mentored by Fish. Understandably she was wary of him at the beginning. He remembered her cozying up to Fish as he was hanging by his wrists on a meat rack, as he had just been told he would die a slow and painful death. He was wary of her at first too.

But now, Tabitha had taken the girl under her wing, and they were a package deal. When he first saw her, he called her Selina and sneered. She almost took his hand off with her whip, and Tabitha almost laughed. Selina expressed that if he _ever_ called her Selina again, she wouldn’t miss. It was Cat now, to everyone except Ivy and Tabitha.

They made things work. Fries and Bridget stayed on call, but mostly did their own freelance stuff. They showed up to the club like clockwork every Thursday evening, where the six of them all laughed and had a good time. Fries and Bridget would head out, then Ivy with Tabitha trailing not too far behind, until it was just him and Cat left.

Just last week, she had asked him “So how are you gonna celebrate?” In response to his apparent shock, “it’s a year next week, dumbass. A year of Mr. Yeti sitting in that corner.”

Sure enough it had almost been a year since Fries had frozen Ed into a block of ice. He thought about it for a minute and then responded. “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll throw a big one-year anniversary for the club and decorate him strangely? If he’s conscious it’ll piss him off.” Cat smiled at him and rolled her eyes. “What?”

“It’s obvious isn’t it? You miss him.”

Oswald scoffed. Did he miss Edward? Of course. But he wasn’t about to let Cat know that. “Absolutely not.”

Cat laughed. “Look, as a fellow person missing someone, you know what makes me feel better? Gloating. You get a good look at them, they open their mouth, and you remember why you ditched ‘em.” Oswald assumed she was talking about the Wayne boy, who she frequently visited just to tease.

It seemed like a bad idea, but he didn’t want to miss Ed anymore. Hearing him say literally anything would remind Oswald exactly why he’d frozen him in the first place. So he smiled at Cat, told her it was a lovely idea, and wiped his calendar for the following Monday.

+

Unfreezing Ed had been a mistake.

Unfreezing Ed had been a _large_ mistake.

Oswald had expected a snarky comment. He had expected a lunge for his throat. But Ed blinked, let out a little gasp of air, and fell over.

He looked absolutely pathetic, and Oswald almost felt sorry for him.

(Which was the exact _opposite_ of the purpose of this exercise.)

Ed hung him up by his wrists, exactly where the ice block used to be, and turned on the heating. Gloating wasn’t going to be fun if Ed was passed out.

When Ed finally wakes up he sputters, shivers, and then looks at Oswald. Oswald can see the fear in his eyes for just a second before the mask goes back on. “Well,” Ed drawls, “are you going to torture me?”

Oswald smiles. He remembers why he froze Ed now. “Only mentally,” he says, “only mentally.”

Ed looks around the club. “Like what you’ve done with the place. Are the customers going to be confused when they see me unfrozen?”

“We’re closed for the day.”

Ed nods and closes his eyes. His face scrunches up the way it does when he’s thinking hard and _oh_. Oswald remembers why he loved him in the first place. Well, that’s unfortunate. The crease of his brow, the cute way he bites his lip, the little twist of his nose.

 _Oh dear_ . _This is not how this was supposed to go_.

“So why?” asks Oswald, snapping Ed out of his daydream.

“What do you mean?”

“Why unfreeze me? Unless you’re just planning on rubbing it in that you won.” Oswald gave a smile, and Ed gasped, looking positively scandalized. “You’d risk me escaping… just to gloat? I always said you weren’t the smartest Oswald, but this is next level.”

Oswald just continued to smile. “You’re not going to get away. And I’m just going to brag, until you can’t take it anymore.” And he does. He tells Ed story after story of how successful he is now that Ed is gone, until Ed can’t take it anymore. And then he talks some more. When he finally gets tired, he calls in Fries and has Ed refrozen. Ed begs him not to, but he does anyway.

+

It becomes a yearly tradition more easily than Oswald would like.

Anniversary days, he unfreezes Edward, ties him up, laughs at him, and then refreezes him.

If the customers notice him changing positions, they don’t say anything.

(He knows they notice. He notices several of them noticing.)

(They’re too scared to say anything.)

(Good.)

It’s an easy system. Every year, like clockwork. It’s not until the fourth year that everything gets horribly screwed up.

It’s not until the fourth year that Oswald gets Ed to solve a riddle for him.

He’s been having a hard time with a heist. A Faberge egg, under the heavy protection of newly minted acting commander Jim Gordon. He’s tried covert, guns blazing, inside man; he cannot seem to figure this one out. He figures while the best strategist he ever had is unfrozen, he’ll take advantage of the situation.

Ed wakes up with a sputter again. He’s tied up. Oswald starts to gloat and then explains the situation. “How can it be done?”

Ed thinks for a moment, not stressed but pensive. “Have you tried a bait and switch?”

 _Oh_. That simple? He resolves to try it, and refreezes Ed.

It works, and he’s not even angry about it.

+

Nine months later, he unfreezes Ed again, but he’s careful. He has to think a year has passed. He sets all the clocks forward, closes the club for the day, and makes the club warmer to pretend it’s already summer.

He has another issue.

He unfreezes Ed. He gloats only for a few minutes. Then he takes out his list.

It’s full of things he needs Ed’s help on. It’s long, because he doesn’t plan on doing this often. He needs Ed’s advice now, so he can try things out, and then keep him frozen, like he belongs.

“Blinking ghost trick.”

“Try a motorcycle barricade around the car.”

“Dye the money orange.”

Ed is frozen again.

+

His list is always long, because he doesn’t want to unfreeze Ed any more often than he has too.

That doesn’t stop him from unfreezing Ed not two months later, then two weeks, then every week.

His list is always long because he wants to talk to Ed for as long as he can.

+

“What year is it?”

Oswald wasn’t expecting the question. He’s always so careful to turn the calendar forward, but he doesn’t know how many times he unfrozen Ed. Not since his years started becoming less like years.

He stutters. He was never good at math, and it’s showing itself now. Oswald sighs. “How long have you known?”

Ed gives a small smile and says, “About ten years now. So what year is it actually?”

Ed is very understanding. Oswald swears to him up and down that it was a once a year thing for a while, but he needed help. Ed says it’s ok. The more often he’s out of the ice, the better for him, he proclaims.

He and Ed work out the solutions to all the problems they need fixed.

At the end of the evening he refreezes Ed, but it feels like there’s something different about it.

The next evening, someone at the club points out that Ed’s frozen figure is now smiling.

The lucky patron does not live to see the next morning.

+

Every time it gets harder to freeze him.

Ed is always so understanding, and Oswald wonders how he can be like that. One week, Oswald airs his question out loud, and Ed explains. “It’s a lot of time in the ice,” he says, “gives me time to think. To work things out that I probably should have figured out long ago.”

And right there, Ed apologizes to him.

Oswald almost cries.

It’s becoming much harder to freeze Ed than it already was.

+

It turns out Ed remembers most of what’s happening while he’s in the ice.

“So you’re conscious while you’re in there?” Oswald asks, a few weeks after the apology.

“Sort of,” says Ed, “It’s mostly like a long dream while I’m in there. That’s when I do the whole _thinking_ thing. And I really only feel cold. When I’m out, the memories kick in.”

Oswald asks him to elaborate, and he does. “Like, I remember Veronica Vreeland saying I was never worthy of your time yesterday, but I don’t remember actually seeing it happen. It’s confusing.”

Ed gets refrozen at the end of their chat, and the club opens for the evening.

For the first time in her rich, privileged life, Veronica Vreeland is denied access to somewhere she wants to be.

“You don’t understand,” she pleads with the bouncer, “I’m a Vreeland! I’m a friend to Mr. Penguin.” No matter how hard she argues, they won’t let her in. She proclaims that “The Iceberg Lounge is on a downward spiral” and stalks off to one of Harvey Dent’s new clubs.

Inside, someone laughs at the sight of the Riddler, who’s now wearing a parka coat. She’s just a little too drunk, and everyone around her is a little too tipsy to stop her.

“I mean, it’s ironic for sure! But what gets me is the aesthetic,” she laughs, “Why wear a purple coat over a green suit? Great art, for sure. I almost want to put it in my gallery.”

She is never heard from after that evening.

Her friends will swear that they brought her home safe and sound, but they all move away from Gotham in the next three months, with money they didn’t have before.

In the official GCPD report, the case is classified as “suspicious” by one Detective Bullock. If he’s being honest with himself he knew it was the Penguin, but because he can’t think of a motive and he knows the Penguin wouldn’t have left behind any evidence, he lets it go.

+

Ed and Oswald are making it work.

He still unfreezes Ed once a week, and keeps the club closed all day. He’s started to keep it closed in the evening too, so he can spend as much time with his friend as possible.

Slowly they start to patch things up. They start spending the morning going over plans, and then they talk about them. They talk about their whole relationship, day by day, what they did right and what they did wrong.

When they talk about Isabella, Oswald gets her name right. Ed is shocked, and then calls her Isabelle on purpose. They laugh for what feels like forever.

And slowly, they start to evolve.

It starts with a touch. Oswald puts his hand on Ed’s shoulder while they’re going over plans. Despite their closeness before, they were never very _touchy_ friends. He feels Edward seize up under him and _oh no he’s messed this up_ but suddenly Ed relaxes and puts his free hand on top of Oswald’s.

One day, Edward kisses him. It’s everything Oswald has ever wanted it to be, but shockingly he’s not the one crying. Ed is.

They talk, and they laugh, and they cry, and they kiss all evening, until they fall asleep on one of the couches in the lounge in each other’s arms.

Oswald wakes up in the morning, still tangled around Ed. He hadn’t refrozen him that night, and he hadn’t run away. Edward had _stayed_ . With _him_.

He reached over for his phone, and played a voicemail he had received from Victor (Fries, not Zsaz, Zsaz was on a mission) the night before.

“Hey Os, never got a call from you last night. Just wanted to make sure you didn’t need me and my equipment? If I don’t hear from you in the next 12 hours I’m busting into the lounge to make sure you’re still alive. Okay, that’s all.”

Ed stirs at the noise, makes a cute sniffling noise, and goes back to sleep. Oswald smiles, and types a quick text back to Victor, that he will not be needing him or his equipment today, or anywhere in the near future.

Oswald and Ed are making it work. And they couldn’t be happier.

**Author's Note:**

> much thanks to jordy for being the best beta a gal could ask for!


End file.
